8. [+100, -2] They should've promoted it more. I came across this two days ago and it's already the finale

9. [+93, -1] Really maintained the quality until the very end. It's a
joy to see Sunwoo every friday and it's so sad that I won't see him
anymore ㅠㅠGreat work to the staff and cast! Kim Jae Joong, thankㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ you

10. [+87, -3] Excellent drama but it was in the wrong timeslot ㅠㅠIf it was aired on Mon-Tue or Wed-Thur, it would've had higher ratings

2. [+60, -1] I really like that the actors are getting applauded for
their acting and that the drama is being considered a masterpiece

3. [+52, 0] 'Spy' is really an amazing drama. I hope there's a season 2.
It really got a lot of recognition even before it ended. If you
concentrate on the drama, you just can't help but fall in love with it..
I hope it will be remembered for a long time^^

4. [+31, 0] Although a Kim Jae Joong fan here, it's really cool how I
didn't see him as Kim Jae Joong the singer but just Sunwoo. Really
impressed

Nothing is ever see when it comes to Sun-woo and keeping his family
safe from those who would more than happily use them as pawns. Even in
its finale week, Spy continues to hammer in the idea that the one
with the hard drive in his hands gets to hold the cards to this game.
Bullets fly in this penultimate episode and tears are shed, and if
there’s a small ray of hope left in this battle, it’s that Sun-woo has
more than one person who has his back.

EPISODE 15 RECAPUpon Ki-chul and his lackeys’ arrival to the hard drive standoff,
Chief Song pulls his gun on Sun-woo, who easily disarms him and takes
back the hard drive. Ki-chul gives the order to shoot everyone except
Sun-woo, and a barrage of bullets take down the agents.Sun-woo fires a few warning shots to call off the gunfire, and like
the true coward he is, Chief Song makes a run for it. Sun-woo gives
Hyun-tae the green light to give chase, reassuring his worried sunbae
that he can take care of things here—he has the hard drive, after all.After telling him that the NIS will arrive soon enough, Hyun-tae tells him a quick “don’t die,” then takes off in pursuit.Ki-chul has a card to trade of his own—Mom—and he fires another shot
at a wounded agent before demanding the hard drive. Sun-woo threatens to
destroy the hard drive unless they hand Mom over first, but Ki-chul
calls him on that bluff and sends a bullet into Mom’s arm.An angry tear falls from Sun-woo’s eyes, and he growls to Ki-chul
that time is ticking down. And it really is, as we see a group of NIS
agents (on Director Jung’s orders) racing down the road.Our other chase continues through the woods as Hyun-tae pursues Chief
Song. When the latter screams for help, Hyun-tae fires his gun into the
air and tells his ex-buddy that it’s all over.But Chief Song still clings to the notion that it ain’t over ’til
it’s over, and it’s only when he picks up Director Jung’s phone call
does he realize who was listening on the other end of Hyun-tae’s bug.
Director Jung says he’s on his way to meet the assemblyman, since it
looks like Chief Song won’t be able to make it, what with him taking the
fall for the Supervisor’s death and the supervisor.In a crazed voice, Chief Song declares that he won’t go down alone, but that threat hardly fazes Director Jung. Click.. Desperate now, Chief Song turns to Hyun-tae and claims to do anything that’s told of him.It’s sort of pathetic how Chief Song pleads with Hyun-tae to steal
that hard drive together and live in a lap of luxury with that money.
But that’s when the other NIS agents arrive to apprehend Chief Song… … only to put a bullet in him instead. Whoa. Hyun-tae approaches in
disbelief as Chief Song falls to the ground. The fallen man’s phone
rings, its owner unable to pick up his precious daughter’s call.Meanwhile, Ki-chul and Sun-woo hear the warning shot, which Ki-chul
takes as their signal to expedite this exchange. He points his gun at
Mom’s heart, and that’s enough for Sun-woo to stand down.Satisfied, Ki-chul plucks the hard drive from his hand, then shoots
Sun-woo. Mom screams as her son falls and hollers that Ki-chul had
promised not to hurt Sun-woo. C’mon Mom, when does any villain, former
lover or not, ever keep his promise?Mom’s vision starts to blur just then, and she pleads with Ki-chul
not to kill Sun-woo, promising to uphold her end of the bargain by
leaving with him. Ki-chul agrees and tells Sun-woo not to forget that he
let him live twice now before kicking him down and dragging Mom away.Either Yoon-jin was too pre-occupied with planting the one tracking
device in Ki-chul’s van all this time or she decided to stay out of this
entire exchange (despite yunno, having a gun). She’s just about to
approach a wounded Sun-woo when the other NIS agents pull up, and
Sun-woo urges her to take off lest she be captured.So Yoon-jin decides to pursue the van, where Ki-chul breaks into a
smile at seeing the amount of the illegal funds. Looking over at a
struggling Mom, he notes that she’s gotten much weaker over the years
and reassures her that Sun-woo’s wound isn’t fatal.But no matter how much she’s struggling, Ki-chul won’t lose his
bargaining chip by killing her. He makes sure to keep his eye on the
hard drive, but judging from his lackeys’ line of sight, he isn’t the
only one with his eye on it.Yoon-jin stops and contemplates whether to continue purusing
Ki-chul’s van. Thanks to a call from her own mother, she learns that her
family has safely crossed the border. After taking another moment to
think about meeting up with her family, Yoon-jin says she has one last
job to do first.Back at the scene, Hyun-tae watches as Chief Song’s body is taken
away. He picks up a call from Director Jung, who says they’ll continue
with the plan to pin Sun-woo’s family for espionage. The deceased Chief
Song gets to keep his honor as the agent who died in the line of fire
trying to apprehend the spies.When Hyun-tae protests, Director Jung tells him to think of it as an
opportunity—Chief Song’s position is open now, after all. After sending a
team to chase Ki-chul’s van, Hyun-tae rides with a fainted Sun-woo in
the ambulance.We enter Sun-woo’s mind, where he recalls when Mom had scolded him
for mimicking her speech patterns. Mom had told the young Sun-woo that
it would break her heart if Sun-woo was ever hurt because of her, then
gathered her son into her arms. “I’m doing all of this for your sake,”
she’d explained.The vision slowly changes as the young Sun-woo turns into the adult
we know and Mom ages as well. Dream Mom tells him that she constantly
wrestled with herself about whether telling him the truth would be the
better choice or not. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he tells her.His vision changes once more to the recent past, with Mom clutching
her son, screaming that she’ll do anything if Sun-woo’s life is spared.
Just as he turns back, Sun-woo wakes, to Hyun-tae’s relief.Hyun-tae tries to be careful with his words about the current
situation, but Sun-woo picks up on the fact that his family will be
arrested whether or not they nab Ki-chul because the NIS needs someone
to take the fall, now that Chief Song is dead.Sun-woo struggles to get up after getting Yoon-jin’s text that she’s
chasing Ki-chul’s van. Stopping the ambulance, Hyun-tae gives Sun-woo
his jacket and gun, telling him to get that hard drive back by any means
necessary. There’s nothing left for him to lose, Hyun-tae says, and Sun-woo
needs to save his family. He has to insist to Sun-woo that he’s fine,
assuring him that the NIS can’t get rid of him that easily since he
knows too much already.Sun-woo says he’s sorry, but Hyun-tae replies that if he’s really
that sorry, then he’ll make it through this because they haven’t taken
Sun-woo’s funeral portrait yet. Then Sun-woo calls Yoon-jin for a pick
up, and luckily (or conveniently) for them, Ki-chul’s van isn’t too far
away.Eun-ah falls silent after being updated by Hyun-tae, and Dad is taken
outside to meet with Director Jung in his car. Dad is told that Sun-woo
can get off with on a lighter charge if Dad confesses about Mom’s past
spy activities, but he looks hopeful when he overhears that Sun-woo got
away.Over at the NIS headquarters Hyun-tae smirks behind Director Jung’s
back when he’s scolded for losing Sun-woo en route. But then Hyun-tae
asks what they’ll do if Sun-woo successfully nabs Ki-chul and retrieves
the hard drive—will the director clear Sun-woo’s name?Director Jung gives them twelve hours to finish the job. Sun-woo and Yoon-jin track down the van and approach, only to find it
empty. Sun-woo is determined to find Mom as soon as possible, lest he
and his entire family are forsaken, but Yoon-jin argues that they need
to take a moment and think of a plan.She points out that he’s wounded right now, but Sun-woo cuts her off,
saying that Mom is too. It’s then he recalls that one of Ki-chul’s
lackeys was injured too, and if the group abandoned the van here, it
must mean that they went somewhere nearby to treat their injured.He enlists Eun-ah’s help in looking up veterinary clinics in the
neighboring area, along with those who would provide medical treatment
illegally. He’s definitely on the right track, because that’s exactly
where Ki-chul and his crew have stopped to tend to Mom and the lackey’s
wounds.His female lackey says they don’t have time to waste, to which
Ki-chul counters that they can’t leave their comrade behind. He makes
sure to cuff Mom to the bed before telling her to get some rest.Yoon-jin returns to the car after picking up snacks to find Sun-woo
fast asleep. Reminded of the times she worried about Sun-woo’s health
and dangerous line of work, she says that she’d hoped that Sun-woo would
be the only one who wouldn’t get hurt.Back at the clinic, Mom tells the injured lackey that he should be
grateful towards her or else his crew would have already abandoned him.
The wounded are always extra baggage, she continues, and advises him to
stay alert or else he might before getting his share.Ki-chul walks in and sends the lackey out before pulling up a chair
for another nostalgic chat. He’s reminded of that day when she’d planted
the bomb in Shenyang, and he’d woken up in a hospital.He thought he had seen Mom visit his room with a gun, but she’d
failed in shooting him dead. He’d wondered if it was truly her that day,
because there was no reason why she’d let him live. But his growing
curiosity to that question was what kept him alive, and he poses that
question to her now: “Was it you? Was that you at the hospital that
day?”Mom denies it, and Ki-chul explains that the reason why he won’t put
Mom out of her misery is because she chose to spare his life that day.
Again, he tells her to get some rest because they’ve got a long journey
ahead of them.Once Ki-chul leaves, Mom agrees with the idea that it’s all her
fault. She vows to do what she needs to do and tries to reach for a
fallen scalpel on the floor.Meanwhile, Sun-woo grows frustrated when the clinics on the list look
like dead ends for one reason or another. Yoon-jin says they still have
time, and they decide to check another one.Ki-chul’s lackeys decide that now is a good a time as any to attack
their leader (and steal the drive). They lock the doors and lord over
Ki-chul… and then the phone rings. It’s Sun-woo, trying to call the
clinic, hoping that somebody, anybody will pick up.COMMENTSGiven his track record of surviving life-threatening situations in
the past, I’d say that the odds are Ki-chul’s favor right now. Even if
his words that money can buy loyalty are true, it’s also true that
unclaimed money encourages betrayal and weakness in authority breeds
distrust.Now that we’re in finale week, I’d been hoping that everyone’s
motivations would become a bit clearer, and yet the explanations and
behavior only serve muddied answers and even more questions. One would
think that Director Jung would do anything to get that hard drive back,
especially from a group of North Korean spies who plan to leave the
country any day now. But then he appeared to lose interest upon Chief
Song’s death, save face instead, and give up on that mountain of money
(specific amount TBD).Even stranger is Ki-chul, whose weakness when it comes to Mom is no
secret. His previous show of shooting at Mom’s feet only serves to
reinforce his residual feelings for her, and it would be hard for anyone
in his company to ignore all those late-night chats about the past and
running away together. And somehow Mom had continued to trust the idea
that the man who has betrayed her time and time again that he’d uphold
his promise. It would be great if Mom comes out as the big heroine in
this, who somehow overpowers her captors and saves her family, but then
again her track record suggests otherwise.So then it’s up to Sun-woo, with a grazed bullet wound and thiiiiis
close from going into shock to save the day. His interactions with
Hyun-tae continue to be one of the highlights of this series, and a pity
that there weren’t enough of those moments. I love that Hyun-tae has
Sun-woo’s back and willing to take responsibility for him in case
something goes wrong and refuses to see corrupt authority destroy
Sun-woo’s family. A part of me wishes that he’d gone with Sun-woo to
look for Ki-chul instead of Yoon-jin, but it makes sense that he needs
to keep the NIS from trying to hunt Sun-woo down every five minutes.It was pitiful to watch Chief Song unravel so quickly from an enemy
who boasted about his backers to a desperate man losing a shoe and
refusing to believe that this was the end of the road for him. It is
pretty frightening to think that Director Jung holds enough power to do
away with any NIS agent at will, but instead of focusing on the idea
that any employee who defies him can easily end up dead, everyone’s eyes
are turned to that hard drive for one reason or another.

If Spy was ever about more than the pursuit of a
flimsy piece of hardware holding the secret to immeasurable wealth, you
might find yourself hard-pressed to remember that in a finale that
revolves solely around the acquisition and eventual trade of The One
Hard Drive. I wish I could say I’d miss that thing since we’ve spent
what feels like sixteen dog years lending it an undue amount of
conveniently arbitrary plot importance, but I’m happy to see it
gone—even if it means saying goodbye to the rest of the show as well.
We’ll miss parts of you, Spy. You know which parts you are.

FINAL EPISODE RECAPIt’s Ki-chul who picks up Sun-woo’s call at the veterinary clinic,
and he doesn’t need to say anything for Sun-woo to confirm his location.But when Ki-chul escorts Mom out, the scalpel on the floor is gone. Wait, does that mean she’s going to actually do something?Ki-chul and Mom find their way blocked when his lackeys line up to
face them, guns raised. They take the hard drive from him, but need him
to tell them the password to get on their escape boat out of the
country—something he doesn’t need to do, since he never even bought them
passage.That’s when the wounded lackey turns on his comrades and fires. Both
he and Ki-chul manage to shoot and kill every last one of the traitors,
with Ki-chul explaining that he’s loyal to him because of their time
spent in a prison camp together.So much for that, though—soon enough the wounded lackey has his gun
pointed at Ki-chul. He demands to know what the password is, while one
lackey (who’s barely clinging to life) shakily aims his gun and fires
right into the wounded lackey’s back.Ki-chul takes the opportunity to use him as a bullet shield before
killing him, only to take a scalpel to the back from Mom, who proceeds
to run away like the clueless girl in a slasher flick. Don’t spies know
how to double tap?Yoon-jin sees Mom flee the clinic while Sun-woo goes inside, and
calls him to tell him her location while she follows Mom, but doesn’t
reveal her presence. While she’s on the phone with him, she hears
someone step out from behind her, the click of a poison pen.She turns around just in time to get stabbed by Ki-chul, who reminds
her of his warning that she’d experience the same death as Soo-yeon if
she ever betrayed him.Sun-woo hears the exchange over the phone, and rushes to get the
antidote kit Eun-ah had given him within the tiny three minute time
frame it needs in order to be effective. He makes it just in time to
shoot it into Yoon-jin’s arm and save her life. In return, she tells him
which way Mom went.Ki-chul takes the opportunity to use him as a bullet shield before
killing him, only to take a scalpel to the back from Mom, who proceeds
to run away like a clueless girl in a slasher flick. Don’t spies know to
double tap?Mom is gasping for air as she runs blindly down darkened alleys,
flashing back to her despondency after having Sun-woo. “How can a woman
like me become a mother?” she’d asked her husband accusingly, since he
hadn’t allowed her to get rid of the baby.In the present, she can only shake her head as she breathes that this
is all her fault. No doubt she blames Sun-woo’s predicament on herself,
and the fact that he was even born. That’s probably the most unhelpful
thing she could be thinking of right now.While Sun-woo and Ki-chul look for Mom separately, Sun-woo calls
Hyun-tae to alert him to the scene in the veterinary clinic. Mom flashes
back to when she first held Sun-woo in her arms and promised him she’d
protect him.She’s broken from her reverie by her son’s adult voice calling out to
her, bidding her to hold on just a little longer—they can arrest
Ki-chul and go home soon. Mom would rather him not find her, but he sees
her and starts to run toward her.…Just as Ki-chul raises his gun to shoot Sun-woo the second he rounds
the corner. Mom musters all her strength, and with a cry, leaps up in
time to take the bullet intended for her son.Ki-chul takes only a moment to recover from what he’s done before he
shoots again, this time hitting Sun-woo in the arm. He takes the hard
drive and looks condescendingly down at Mom as he asks, “Is your family
that important? To the extent that you’d throw your life away?”Mom gasps desperately for breath as she ekes out that Ki-chul can’t
take the hard drive, because that’s the only thing that’ll save her
family now.He still tries to take it, but Sun-woo manages to bring himself to
his feet, and the two exchange gunfire. Ki-chul gets away and Sun-woo
doesn’t pursue, instead dropping to his knees next to Mom.Mom’s fading in and out, but musters the strength to tell her son
that she was happy to have had him, and that one of her greatest joys
was being able to carry him in her arms and look after him as he grew
up.She tries to shoo him away toward the harbor where she knows Ki-chul
will attempt his escape, but Sun-woo refuses to leave her and instead
hauls her up on his back. “I was wrong,” she murmurs almost incoherently, her head hanging over
his shoulder. “I was wrong.” Yoon-jin steps out to meet them, managing
to convince a reluctant Sun-woo to chase after Ki-chul—she’ll get Mom to
a hospital.While Sun-woo calls Eun-ah for help tracking Ki-chul’s boat down,
Hyun-tae deals with the merciless Director Jung, who makes certain that
Sun-woo will come through for them by taking Dad as a semi-hostage
(again).Before he goes, Dad makes sure to tell Young-seo that while she may
hear many things about her parents from here on out, she should remember
one thing: “Mom and Dad love you very much. We will work hard to become
people you won’t be ashamed of.”And more importantly, he adds, Young-seo must remember that whatever
she hears about her parents, it has nothing to do with her. “You live
the way you want to live with pride,” he says. They embrace tearfully.As Yoon-jin accompanies Mom to the operating room, they both think,
but don’t speak, that they would have liked to have met each other under
different circumstances, and in a different time.Ki-chul is suffering from a gunshot wound to the gut after his fight
with Sun-woo, but still doggedly drives himself to the port where he’s
to take his ship (was he driving all night or did we just get lazy with
the night/day transitions?).He grabs the hard drive and staggers to the edge of the abandoned
dock, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he goes. When he can go no
further, he drops to his knees.Sun-woo gets Eun-ah to ensure that the boat Ki-chul is set to travel
on knows he’s coming and will refuse him entry before he makes it to the
dock himself. He finds Ki-chul’s crashed car before he finds the man
himself……Only to find him face down on the ground. Sun-woo is shocked as he
approaches Ki-chul’s prone form, just managing to catch a glimpse of the
picture of Mom Ki-chul has in his limp hand. Whoa, wait… he’s dead? Just like that?He calls Hyun-tae to tell him he’s procured the hard drive so that
Hyun-tae can get Director Jung to stop the briefing, where he would’ve
outed Sun-woo and his family for espionage. Now they’re safe.But Mom’s not out of danger yet, as Sun-woo and Hyun-tae gather
outside the operating room where doctors are fighting to save her life.
Sun-woo knows Yoon-jin must have brought her here, even though Hyun-tae
claims not to have seen her.Hyun-tae delivers the hard drive to Director Jung, who hints that this isn’t all Hyun-tae will be required to do. Uh oh.While Sun-woo and his family keep vigil outside the operating room
until morning, Hyun-tae can’t help but think about Chief Song’s last
desperate moments while eating the kimbap Song said he could do away
with if only he’d joined hands with him.And when the surgeons come out to tell the family how the surgery
went, Sun-woo, Dad, and Young-seo link hands in solidarity and support.One year later.Eun-ah spills her dating woes into Sun-woo’s sympathetic ear soon
before he leaves to tend to his utterly normal corporate job. He drinks
with his sunbaes and takes some time to be alone, his eyes looking
faraway and distant as he broods silently.He and Young-seo are back to being their normal bickering selves at
home, where Dad looks on dotingly. He even comments that Sun-woo is more
nagging than a wife to her husband. But where’s Mom?Sure enough, she’s safe and sound as Sun-woo finds her in her room.
She’s packing their things for a move—hopefully with all of them
together this time.Sun-woo may have switched to a civilian job, but Hyun-tae and Eun-ah
haven’t, since they have a quibbling fight over Hyun-tae wanting her to
call him the more familiar “oppa” rather than just “sunbae,” despite
having received a promotion. She doesn’t give in, but jokes around with
him about their dinner date at Sun-woo’s house.They arrive together bearing expensive health gifts for Mom and Dad,
with Hyun-tae stopping Sun-woo specifically to give him something extra
potent. Aw. I know it’s product placement, but the sentiment is sweet.Turns out Mom was packing because they’re planning to move to the
suburbs after Young-seo takes her college entrance exam, and after
dinner, Hyun-tae asks Sun-woo if he isn’t bored with working an ordinary job.“It’s good to be ordinary,” Sun-woo retorts with a smile, though
Hyun-tae still doesn’t buy it—Sun-woo looks too comfortable and bored to
be truly happy. But he gifted Sun-woo with extra-special ginseng because he wanted
him to read the note inside (okay, now this is just product placement),
asking him if he wants to do one last job for the NIS by meeting with a
double agent who has some questions regarding the hard drive incident
from the year before.He waits alone for the contact to meet him, until he hears a familiar voice yell his name……It’s Yoon-jin, looking pretty in pink. She smiles as she struts over
to Sun-woo to tell him that she needs his help for something.Sun-woo just smiles, and she smiles right back.HEADSNO2’S COMMENTSNot to sound too bloodthirsty, but that’s it? How anticlimactic. Of course we can give credit where credit is due and proudly proclaim that Spy
didn’t lose its mind in the final episode like so many shows are wont
to do, but there’s such a thing as being too safe, which is probably
where I’d put this finale on the spectrum between Very Vanilla and
Batshit Crazy. To say that this finale spent its time tying a neat bow out of all
the disparate plot threads would be dishonest, since a time skip and a
languidly paced epilogue do not a satisfying wrap-up make. Stakes were
all but missing, though the show desperately wanted us to think
otherwise by shooting as many characters as possible in the hopes that
we’d care about at least one of them. Even if we had, too many
characters have been injured and survived for us to put much stock in
one or two gunshot wounds.Establishing life-or-death scenarios surprisingly takes more than
just putting characters in deadly situations, especially in a show with
so many fake-outs as Spy has had in the past. It’s a matter of
world building as well as crying wolf one too many times, so much so
that when Ki-chul just up and died from that gunshot wound, it came as
more a surprise than anything. It was both a fitting death for him and
thoroughly unfitting, and even now, I still can’t quite sort out how I
feel about the way his end was handled.Which shouldn’t be taken to mean that every character who’s mortally
wounded needs to die—we’ve seen plenty of character deaths in this
show’s run—just that it shouldn’t come off like a lottery that some
characters won and some didn’t. I know that life can be like that, but
when you create a fictional world you assume control of it, and that’s
just one of the things that should come off as a more calculated move
than anything. Who you keep and who you kill makes a statement, and the
statement Spy gave us was that Soo-yeon didn’t need to die. (I’m still chafed about that.)On the flip side, everyone else got to live, all the conflict
surrounding the hard drive was conveniently wiped clean, and our core
family got to return to their lives as if the events of the past fifteen
and a half episodes never happened. If they’ve been irrevocably changed
by those events, we’d certainly never know it, even though I’m still
scratching my head about all the threats made to charge Sun-woo’s family
for espionage—so much so that Mom inexplicably believed that (1) not
only would her family become criminals because of her, but (2) that
fleeing the country with her misbegotten stalker would somehow and
magically fix everything, only to be (3) genuinely surprised when it didn’t.The fact that Mom lost her ability to be understood is a crying shame
really, since this show touted itself as being an engaging spy thriller
with a fraught mother and son relationship at its core. Why? We’ll
never know. It had everything it needed to be that mother and
son drama, though it intentionally decided to be about everything and
anything else, with just a sprinkling of what should’ve actually
mattered. Examples of what didn’t include: Ki-chul’s obsession with Mom,
Mom’s total inability to put two and two together, the North’s
motivations, the South’s motivations, motivations in every sense of the
word, Chief Song’s entire character, and that hard drive.And after all that time spent on the supposed importance of the hard
drive, it was traded for a deal we didn’t know had to even be made in
the first place and that was that. It could not have had any less
importance to Sun-woo, and was only made relevant to him when his family
was threatened during everyone’s mission to acquire it. The only
meaning it had was the importance arbitrarily assigned to it, which
would’ve been fine and well if we’d ever really been given a reason to
care—instead it was just a thing, and the use of that thing to
string one scene into the next so that Sun-woo’s journey as a son and
agent were more like afterthoughts in relation to it was not the story I
think most of us signed up for.The cast remained mostly solid till the end, with obvious standouts being Jaejoong, Jo Dal-hwan as Hyun-tae, and Ryu Hye-young
as Eun-ah, who each showed a special dedication to their roles.
Hyun-tae and Eun-ah’s roles especially could have come off much flatter,
but Hyun-tae was humanized by his struggle to do right by his fallen
partner and his inherent goodness as a person, while Eun-ah came off as
surprisingly real and just plain human. I’m going to miss them.Despite the structural failings that ultimately resulted from an
unfocused script, this was still a fitting pre-military sendoff for
Jaejoong, who’s proven himself a capable leading actor even in
unfavorable circumstances. While I’d point to Triangle as his
breakout role, what both shows had in common was that they required a
relative acting newbie to carry them on his shoulders, which is what
made both performances all the more memorable. Of course, that’ll only
make the next two Jaejoong-less years all the more difficult to swallow,
which I’m pretty sure is the whole point. No one ever said loving Oppa
was easy.GUMMIMOCHI’S COMMENTSUh… hi, Yoon-jin. Sorry to say, but I’m not happy to see you. Oh boy,
I already feel much better now that’s off of my chest. Initially
announced as an action-packed, family-centric drama, Spy
certainly possessed the elements of an engaging bit of spy fiction: one
family unit entangled up in a political conflict that would potentially
shake the already tense relations between the two Koreas. That kind of
premise would practically write itself into a gripping tale, because we
as viewers would love to know why it has to be THIS family—why these people were so damn important.Not knowing why our hero is so sought after ten episodes down the
road is cause for worry, but if an entire series can wrap-up and make a
viewer question what the point of the whole mission was (answer: a hard
drive) and realize that the story could have chugged along at the same
pace without its core group of characters (presumably, our family), then
a show is in serious trouble. Although I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint
exactly where Spy first made a wrong turn, I can say that this
show is an example of what can happen to an reboot in the hands of a
clumsy writer. For a spy-action show, there was plenty of non-action and
non-spy work going on, and even the initially heart-tugging familial
moments turned into jumbled story elements thrown in to occupy airtime.It’s almost criminal to imagine then that Spy had a solid source material (the Israeli drama The Gordin Cell)
at its disposal to use as an idea bank. I could understand the notion
to use source material as a launching pad to branch off into a different
narrative, but then again, what we got was nothing to sing accolades
of. By the end, Sun-woo and his family members turned into pitiable
characters caught between two greedy semi-evil entities in Ki-chul and
NIS (and virtually everyone in the NIS apart from Eun-ah and Hyun-tae).
Ki-chul’s motivation for that hard drive and badgering Mom & Co.
were mutually exclusive — the first for riches, the second for personal
vengeance. Together, these pieces failed to fit quite right, because
there would be times where one motive took precedence over the other.Given the great importance Spy had placed on that damned hard
drive and all the action happening on my screen over it, I’d hoped that
it would be destroyed or dealt with otherwise. And it was in that moment
I’d realized that after everything, it ended up in Director Jung’s
hands and the awful man has exactly what he wanted. Which practically
makes the whole fight over it (and sadly then Chief Song’s death)
virtually moot. In the epilogue, the show had me believe that perhaps
either Mom and/or Yoon-jin had passed away, which I thought was why
Sun-woo appeared more solemn. When I discovered that neither was the
case, and that Yoon-jin’s reappearance was the same move I’d seen in
every lazy flick of writing of an open-ended reunion, I felt cheated out
of any threat that had been brought up at any point in the show.If there ever was a shining redeeming quality to this show, it would
be by far the men in this family. I could fill pages about Dad and his
steadfast devotion to his wife and children, along with his willingness
to protect his family. His helplessness in the time when he knew that
there was nothing he could do broke my heart, but how could you not love
a jolly, honorable family man? And wouldn’t you know that Sun-woo takes
after his father in his own relationship with Yoon-jin (even if I was
never sold on the romance). Coming across a hero who actually comes from
a loving home with solid parent-child relationships is hard to come by,
which makes me appreciate Sun-woo all the more. Jaejoong has come a
long way, improving with each role he takes on. We’ll need to wait at
least twenty-something months until he can be back on our screens, but
rest assured that we’ll be here waiting.

[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Spy - Drama" Episode 15

2015/03/06

As the shootout indicates, the time for negotiation is over. Seon-woo
being, of course, the doof that he is, attempts to further negotiate
anyway, and the results are predictably bad. Right to the end both he
and Hye-rim are determined to make sacrifices for each other, and right
to the end Gi-cheol takes advantage of this fact to make sure all his
enemies are more focused on ethical discussion than they are the actual
long-term goal.But then, that conflict has been the main problem for the entirity of "Spy - Drama".
Hye-rim, and later on Seon-woo, have consistently failed to realize
that protecting their family and protecting the country are not, in
fact, mutually exclusive goals. The only reason the situation has gotten
this bad in the first place is because the good guys have been
consistently incapable of getting their act together. So the dramatic
tension here is whether they can win in the end, even given the colossal
disadvantages.As it turns out, though, Gi-cheol has a pretty big disadvantage too.
To date he's only ever faced one serious threat in the course of this
mission, and that was dispatched through the power of teamwork. The
question subtly but unmistakably comes up here- why exactly are all the
henchmen hanging out with Gi-cheol? Yes, obviously there's the promise
of all the money. But if that's the actual goal, then why does Gi-cheol
insist on putting so much effort into maintaining custody of Hye-rim?Gi-cheol refuses to admit that his emotional attachment is a
liability- just the same as with every other character in this drama.
Except Seon-woo. The outcome of the armed confrontation would have been
enough to sideline the younger spy, but by insisting on making it
personal, Gi-cheol ends up putting everyone at risk. In the end it seems
like Gi-cheol is poised to be hoist by his own petard- a fitting irony
given that Hye-rim increasingly seems to be the only reason he went to
all this trouble in the first place.The simplicity of the action and the true, transparent nature of the character motivations here unveil "Spy - Drama"
as being the core concept of an espionage thriller- all that minor
detail nitpicking, all for the sake of one final outcome that could be
undone at any minute by any possible mistake. It's an interesting enough
reversal actually- Gi-cheol may be the best at this game, but he's
outnumbered and increasingly running out of cards.Review by William Schwartz"Spy - Drama" is directed by Park Hyeon-seok, written by Han Sang-woon and Lee Kang and features Kim Jae-joong, Bae Jong-ok, Yoo Oh-seong, Ko Sung-hee, Jeong Won-joong and Kim Min-jae.

[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Spy - Drama" Episode 16 Final

2015/03/06

The crescendo of the conflict is, like the previous episode, a fairly
easy to understand affair. The characters here fight to hold on to any
possible advantage they can find at any given moment. When the first
stage of Gi-cheol's plan goes wrong, it takes quite a bit of
quick-shooting and hot-headed negotiation before the scene finally ends
with one character taking a prop from a previous scene out of nowhere.
Unfortunately for Gi-cheol, keeping track of everything that's going on
at once is pretty hard.It makes for a somewhat bittersweet climax. Good prevails, not so
much because they actually know what they're doing, but because Gi-cheol
finally makes a tactical mistake. Seon-woo is still largely unchanged
as a character from the first episode. He's competent to be sure, but
the younger spy chiefly prioritizes sentimentality. Without hesitation,
Seon-woo plays the role of good guy here even as he knows every minute
he wastes is another minute that his mother could be finished.That's certainly one way to manage a character arc, albeit a strange
one. No character growth- everyone is just thrust into the drama and
left to try and claw their way out through the strength of their own
grit. Don't expect any surprises too big from the epilogue- well, I
guess I was kind of surprised about what ended up happening to Yoon-jin.
Although maybe that was just a matter of her realizing that there's not
really that much contradiction about being a spy and a good person
after all.It seems a little light, really, considering all the effort that's gone into "Spy - Drama".
I have to confess that thinking back on the series, I have trouble
remembering a lot of the finer plot points. But then any good spy
thriller isn't really about the minutae- it's about being able to
maintain a tense, exciting atmosphere on the strength of a script
consistently well-written enough that we don't bother questioning the
inconsistencies.And there really aren't any inconsistencies in "Spy - Drama".
That may not seem like huge praise, but this is a very easy thing to
get wrong in a genre that necessitates the audience always keep
guessing. Sometimes the drama was slow, sometimes it was melodramatic,
and other times it actually did manage to feel like a more mainstream
production. In any case, we definitely went out with a loud, satisfying
bang here. So on that count, this was a ride well worth taking.Review by William Schwartz"Spy - Drama" is directed by Park Hyeon-seok, written by Han Sang-woon and Lee Kang and features Kim Jae-joong, Bae Jong-ok, Yoo Oh-seong, Ko Sung-hee, Jeong Won-joong and Kim Min-jae.